History - Who We Are
Theatre Without Borders (TWB) began its evolution in November 2003 when American theatre director Roberta Levitow returned to the U.S. from a Fulbright Senior Specialist residency at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Following attendance at the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre and theatre workshops in East Africa and Poland, she was searching for artists, theatres and organizations in the US that shared her interest in international exchange.
She soon discovered other friends and colleagues who were infused with the spirit of internationalism: Erik Ehn, playwright and presently the Dean of the Theatre School at CalArts, who had traveled to Rwanda in order to write a play about the genocide; Catherine Filloux, another Fulbright Senior Specialist and playwright, who had been creating theatre pieces with artists in Cambodia; and Deborah Brevoort, also a playwright, who had done playwriting residencies in Denmark, Mexico, Australia and Canada.
Together, this small group started meeting to talk about ways to activate and expand international theatre exchange in the US. They began a series of conversations with Joan Channick, then Deputy Director of Theatre Communications Group and the recently named Director of the International Theatre Institute/US Center, as well as with Todd London of New Dramatists.
On May 10, 2004, Catherine organized an informal "theatre without borders" gathering at New Dramatists to discuss international exchange. Expecting no more than 15 people to attend, they were surprised to find the theatre packed with 70 theatre artists who had heard about the gathering via word of mouth and had shown up to be part of the conversation. Before we knew it, our e-mail list of 6 names had grown to over 400 worldwide.
Morgan Allen (playwright and now General Manager at New Dramatists), offered to help us create and maintain our original website (with enormous thanks to technical advisor Randy Paris.) Daniel Banks, a director and NYU performing arts scholar, offered to help us design and implement our symposium in New York City. Directors Sarah Cameron Sunde and Marie-Louise Miller of The Translation Think Tank offered to collaborate on a pilot international translation project. Ellen Kaplan, artist and Smith College professor, offered to edit a book featuring essays on international exchange.
The eventual April 2005 two-day symposium at New Dramatists in New York City, entitled THE FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE: REWARDS, RESPONSIBILITIES, CHALLENGES, POSSIBILITIES drew over 100 theatre artists and administrators from throughout the United States and around the world. Director and producer Marcy Arlin (Immigrants Theatre Project), playwright Ruth Margraff, director and dramaturg Daniel Brunet (German Theatre Abroad) and theatre artist & web designer Greg Beuthin (thanks to Greg for our beautiful website upgrade) were some of the participants who joined the ever expanding and evolving TWB working group.
This original group continues to meet and support TWB activities. Advisors include international theatre veterans Martha Coigney (former Executive Director of the I.T.I. US Center), Philip Arnoult (Center for International Theatre Development, Towson, Maryland), Bill Reichblum (Kadmus Arts), Michael Fields (Dell'Arte Theatre Company), Emilya Cachapero (ITI U.S. Center) and Melanie Joseph (The Foundry.)
Today, TWB is an international virtual community comprised of individual volunteers who meet irregularly and communicate primarily through the internet and our website. Ideas are generated and then implemented by the group. We started with a need, not a plan and we exist in our actions to respond to that need. Our purpose is "Conversation", "Hospitality" and "Information Sharing". We welcome professionals, academics, amateurs, artists working in countries where there is no such thing as a professional theatre community and students.
We are, above all, a mechanism for the free exchange of information and conversation between individual theatre artists around the world. We are the independent, affiliated and unaffiliated theatre artists in the US and abroad who want to talk to each other and share information person-to-person, artist-to-artist. We believe that this single idea has enormous power in a world where information can come at a price in some countries, or where politics and bureaucracy too often mediate communication with others.
We want to speak with other organizations and individuals that serve and work in international theatre exchange. We're made up of people who see the work in many different ways and are not partial to any particular viewpoint. We support them all. We want to keep the connections alive and growing.